Toranosuke Takagi
A protégé of Satoru Nakajima, Takagi has an apt forename since, in part, it means 'tiger' in Japanese, which fits this aggressive hard-charger's racing style. Conversely, off the track he is low-key, and is of a retiring and shy disposition.
After a brilliant karting career and a season in Formula Toyota, Takagi was picked by TOM'S to succeed Jacques Villeneuve in their F3 squad when he was aged just 18 back in 1993. He immediately caught the eye of Nakajima, who gave him a chance to race in his F3000 team late the following year. Three seasons were then spent in Formula Nippon, where he was a regular top-six runner and an occasional winner. The 1997 campaign also saw the Japanese driver clock up over 2000 kms of testing in preparation for his inclusion in the Tyrrell line-up the following year.
Unfortunately he stepped into a team that was marking time, having been purchased by British American Racing. However, the year gave him a useful opportunity to learn the circuits and provided a good platform to build on when he took his sponsorship to Arrows for 1999. As at Tyrrell, Takagi impressed with a fair turn of speed but as often as not was found wanting when it came to putting everything together in the races.
One day, surely, a superstar driver will emerge from the Far East. On the basis, admittedly, of two years spent in poor cars, Takagi proved to be just the latest in a long line of Japanese hopefuls, and he returned to Formula Nippon with the Nakajima team in 2000 where found success immediately taking the Formula Nippon crown. After failing to make the grade in Formula 1, Takagi then tried his hand at the Champ Car series with Walker Racing and then the IRL for Mo Nunn Racing. His best year was in 2003 when he placed tenth in the final IRL standings (despite a 23 point deduction for unacceptable driving at Texas) and took a very good fifth place in the Indianapolis 500, which won him the prestigious Rookie of the Year honour.
Things swiftly turned sour in 2004 after he crashed in pre-season tesheavily in Motegi. Seemingly lacking confidence in his Dallara chassis thereafter, ‘Tiger’ tamely ran in a conservative manner as he ran down a season to forget.
In 2005 Takagi was back in Japan taking part ownership of the front-running Cerumo team in the All-Japan (Super) GT series winning both races held at Fuji and sharing the championship with his driving partner Yuji Tachikawa with his Lexus SC430. In 2006 Tora dropped down to eleventh in the final placings, but such was the level of competition, he was only 12 points adrift of the championship winning score. Less happy was his return to Formula Nippon where the former champion failed to score even a single point in his two seasons back in the category.
